Tuesday, August 13, 2013

So Many Kinds of Beautiful...What I Hope I Can Teach My Daughter (And Remember Myself)

My biggest fear of moving back to Utah is the vanity that's there and getting sucked back into that vain mentality. Don't get me wrong. I love a lot of things about Utah. The mountains. The family and friends I have there. But I've definitely not missed all the liposuction and breast enhancement billboards that saturate the valley (Boise doesn't have any of those.) I don't look forward to explaining to my daughter that some people spend 1000's of dollars on trying to change the way they look, not because of a valid health concern or reconstructive surgery, but because they want to look better in a swimsuit.

Then I remembered a moment I had the other day in my garden. I was looking at these little flowers and thought...

What if those little purple flowers, that I LOVE, wished they looked like a rose? That would make me sad. I love those little beautiful purple flowers. They are beautiful just the way they are. This rose is beautiful just the way it is too. I didn't edit the colors at all because I wanted to keep its natural beauty. Neither flower is better than the other. They are both beautiful to me, just different.

Sometimes different flowers have the same colors. There are my little purple flowers and these...To me neither is better. Both are beautiful.

Or sometimes the same flowers are portrayed slightly differently in art. People might individually have preferences over landscape or portrait formatting, but they are both still beautiful. A running joke my husband and I have is how my hair should look. I regularly ask him his preference on length and color and he always says he doesn't care because it doesn't make a difference to him. This has made me CRAZY, but now I get it. To him long or short, darker or lighter, whatever! It's still beautiful.

My son Michael came to watch me editing. I liked some of these photos cropped off-center.

Or not showing their edges.

He liked them centered and uncropped. Again, more kinds of beautiful.

Then he saw these editing tools and REALLY thought the flowers looked beautiful! LOL

I suppose you could say editing these photos is similar to the physical editing we do with plastic surgery. But it's not. This is free and changed with a click, maybe equal to dying ones hair. Not equal to going into debt or taking on a part-time job to cover the 1000's of dollars of monthly payments of a tummy tuck or enhancement job.

I realize some people do it for confidence, and it's not my place to judge.

I would have them consider though, there are so many kinds of beautiful...

Some people want to look like everyone else because they think looking like everyone else is better.

But God already made you just the way he wanted. He wanted us to all look different because we ARE different. The difference is in the details of our character and soul and that's reflected through our eyes, smile and love.

Some of us are just starting to bloom.

Others are still waiting to. Actually, I think parts of all of us still have yet to bloom. That is beautiful too.

Some of us have personalities that like to be easily visible, high and right in people's line of vision.

Others would prefer to lay low, slightly hidden, but they are still beautiful too.

Some might say there's nothing spectacular about these planter boxes filled with tulips and pansies but I thought they were worth taking pictures and writing about. I thought they were beautiful.

And they are obviously bringing a lot of joy to my daughter too. And I hope I can teach her to never want to change this or enhance that, because that would mean that she is just her body. And she is so much more than her body. Her body is simply the vessel for her creativity, compassion, spontaneity, and crazy-happiness. Why should she want to look like everyone else when she isn't everyone else? She is beautiful just the way God and I made her.

As my favorite classic mormonad says "Be your own kind of beautiful." This flower is unedited. Yes, it is not perfect. It is not as glamour-shopped as some photos of flowers are in calendars and framed art. But it is still a lovely, stunning creation of God, and it is beautiful. Just like you.